The US Congress will not ratify any global climate change agreement if India is not a party to it.

Congressman James Sensenbrenner, the senior most Republican was among the high-powered delegation of US lawmakers, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that visited India last month.

This delegation focused on global warming and energy among other issues. Sensenbrenner said, "While we have differences on how to accomplish greenhouse gas emissions that will be debated extensively in the House of Representatives in the weeks and months to come, one thing we are united on is that for any type of a global warming agreement to work it has to be worldwide in nature."

"And that includes the participation of India and China," he emphasised.

Sensenbrenner, of Wisconsin, who is the ranking GOP member of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, warned that "if we fail to engage India and China in a global treaty, then what will happen is that the United States will simply be at an economic disadvantage as the Chinese and the Indians keep expanding their economy and using coal and other types of fossil fuels to do so."

Saying that there is bipartisan consensus among both Republicans and Democrats, the lawmaker reiterated that "any treaty that does not include India and China and the Third World, will not be ratified by the US Senate," and pointed out that this has been made clear by Senator John F Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, as recently as last week during his trip to East Asia.

Sensenbrenner said that during the India visit of the delegation led by Pelosi, "the Indians got that message loud and clear from the Speaker and other members of the delegation as well as from me."